Creative writing courses continue to proliferate on both sides of the Atlantic .Many writers believe that enrolling on a course, particularly a university one, will make all the difference to their writing careers. Read more
Following on from Hanif Kureishi's attack on creative writing courses this week, this old chestnut of a question has turned up again. Kureishi has dismissed creative writing courses as "a waste of time" and said he would never have gone on one himself, despite the fact that he currently teaches a writing course at Kingston University. Read more
The announcement that 50% of London agency Conville & WalshSee Conville & Walsh listing has been bought by Curtis BrownSee Curtis Brown listing UK is the latest news in the consolidation which is going on amongst literary agents. This purchase brings a successful smaller agency into a bigger one which has not perhaps been so dynamic. Read more
The big questions about creative writing courses still remain, although there's no doubt about their popularity, nor that the universities and colleges see them as real money-spinners. There are now a huge number of writing courses in America - no less that 1,000 - and, after a slower start, about 100 postgraduate courses in the UK catering for the creative writing student. Read more
An interesting study published recently in the US suggests that writers are at greater risk of depression than most other occupations. The study puts artists and writers among the most vulnerable of professionals, alongside other "at risk" jobs including care workers, teachers, social workers, maintenance staff and salespeople. Read more
Can creative writing courses really open up the world of writing to the students who pay heavily for the privilege of taking them? As students begin the return to college or university across the northern hemisphere, this seems a good time to examine whether or not creative writing courses earn their keep. Read more
The staggering number of 285,000 new titles and editions were self-published and published by community presses in the US last year, balanced against a slightly lower figure of 275,000 coming from traditional publishing houses. Read more
So are agents really feeling the pinch now? Long regarded as the fats cats of the industry, there are signs that the London agency constituency is really beginning to join in the pain. You cannot escape the conclusion that there will be redundancies, closures and mergers of agencies. Independent agents have few enough overheads in any case and will cut back on the new authors they take on. Read more
It didn't seem a slow news week, but the amount of coverage which has been given to the sale of Cormac McCarthy's typewriter in the last few days has been truly astonishing. The American writer bought the machine, an Olivetti Lettera 31, from a pawnshop for $50 (£30) in 1963. Read more
'I think a writer's natural style will dictate the form they write in. Some writers can easily bang out a doorstopper - I prefer short, dense and intense, which is why I was drawn to short fiction in the first place. Writing a short story means creating a tiny universe for you, your characters and your readers all to live in for a brief time. It's an intense experience for all involved!
When I first saw the news that Caffè Nero is establishing a new set of writing prizes, I was thrilled. Since the Costa book awards came to an untimely end last year, it's been obvious there is a gap that needs filling, a mechanism to celebrate titles which have the potential to reach a bigger than expected audience. Read more
The author of Babel and The Poppy War, Rebecca F Kuang, has said she finds the idea that authors should only write about characters of their own race "deeply frustrating and pretty illogical".
Translating is complex. First in the work, which requires writing without writing, finding voices that are not ours: being invisible and leaving no trace of a new voice but reflecting the voice of the original author. The irony is that we are not really invisible because readers can spot a bad translation.
The list of past guest speakers at Crit, the writing workshop that author Tony Tulathimutte runs out of his Brooklyn apartment, reads like a veritable who's who of 21st-century literary greats. Jonathan Franzen, Hua Hsu and Carmen Maria Machado have all popped by as guests at the eight-week course. Read more
I'm the author of two books, but I'm used to writing on the side of other jobs. Maybe that means it's a hobby-or maybe it's what knits my whole life together.
It's almost a cliché that spy novels should be dark, gripping, ambiguous. Espionage, after all, is the shadowy business of stealing high-stakes secrets, of manipulation, deception, and betrayal. But after six years of spying for the CIA-then writing my first spy novel-I found the profession was defined by something more fundamental: the enduring weight of unanswered questions.
The UK's first Black woman publisher discusses how the industry has changed since she embarked on her career in the 1960s-and where progress is still required.
Should there be an international conference for publishing professionals in the United States? It is a question numerous people have asked since the demise of BookExpo in 2020. It's no secret that the bright-lights-big-city buzz that made BookExpo so much fun and so essential for so many years had fizzled out, and booksellers and publishers alike were finding it of limited value. Read more
In exclusive research undertaken by The Bookseller, data shows the number of bestselling books by Black authors has fallen after encouraging signs in the wake of Black Lives Matter.
Amazon's main UK division has paid no corporation tax for the second year in a row after benefiting from tax credits on a chunk of its £1.6bn of investment in infrastructure, including robotic equipment at its warehouses.